Cucumber Conundrum

A produce seller sets 200 kg of cucumbers out at the start of the day in a street market. The cucumbers are initially 99% water. Its a very hot day, and unfortunately they have made no sales. At the end of the day when they are pulled off the shelf the cucumbers have dried out some. They are now 98% water. What is the total mass of cucumber remaining at the end of the day?

@joe-shmo said
A produce seller sets 200 kg of cucumbers out at the start of the day in a street market. The cucumbers are initially 99% water. Its a very hot day, and unfortunately they have made no sales. At the end of the day when they are pulled off the shelf the cucumbers have dried out some. They are now 98% water. What is the total mass of cucumber remaining at the end of the day?

200 kg.
Change of state does not affect mass.

@venda said
200 kg.
Change of state does not affect mass.

It does if that mass evaporates out of the cucumber? If you put the cucumbers on a scale at the end of the day, you are going to measure lower weight ( mass ) than what you had at the beginning of the day.

@joe-shmo said
It does if that mass evaporates out of the cucumber? If you put the cucumbers on a scale at the end of the day, you are going to measure lower weight ( mass ) than what you had at the beginning of the day.

Mass and weight are not the same thing.

@joe-shmo said
A produce seller sets 200 kg of cucumbers out at the start of the day in a street market. The cucumbers are initially 99% water. Its a very hot day, and unfortunately they have made no sales. At the end of the day when they are pulled off the shelf the cucumbers have dried out some. They are now 98% water. What is the total mass of cucumber remaining at the end of the day?

100 kg

2 kg dry mass is 1% at the start of the day and 2% at the evening.
If 2kg are 2% whole mass is 100 kg.

@ponderable said
100 kg

2 kg dry mass is 1% at the start of the day and 2% at the evening.
If 2kg are 2% whole mass is 100 kg.

Correct Ponderable!

I like this because intuitively this seems surprising on the surface. An seemingly innocuous percent change in the fraction of the cucumber that is water, leads to very large change in overall mass of the cucumbers!

@venda said
Mass and weight are not the same thing.

Yeah. I know, but that turns out to be irrelevant here. The weight is just a scalar multiple of the mass for this type of problem.